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Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry
Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry episodes
- Why Paying Off Your Mortgage Is Costing You Decades: George Antone on The Wealthy Code
Most of us were taught that owning things free and clear is the finish line. George Antone, author of The Wealthy Code, makes the case that this thinking is why so many people who earn good money never actually get wealthy. When you account for inflation, the money you park in a paid-off asset is quietly losing purchasing power every year. Debt, structured the right way, is the shield.
Fred and I sat down with George for a book club conversation that covered the three dials of wealth building, why a 15-year mortgage can be the riskier loan, how a portfolio with over 100 properties can collapse in 18 months, and why the order you buy assets in can cost you decades.
Key takeaways:
Wealth building runs on three dials working together: leverage, spread, and reinvestment. The asset itself matters less than whether it meets the criteria for all three.
Compare your cap rate to your loan constant, never to the interest rate. A cash-flowing property with a negative spread is still an inefficient use of your capital.
Cash flow is not liquidity. Keep at least 10 percent of your portfolio liquid, plus three to six months of reserves, before you scale with debt.
Sequence matters. Buying liquid, cash-producing assets first and letting them fund your real estate can be the difference between years and decades.
If this conversation got you thinking about your own numbers, start with George's whiteboard exercise: write down every fear you have around debt, then ask what would offset each one. And if you're ready to build your business alongside agents who think this way, learn more about joining us at eXp at nextlevelagents.com/exp. Check out upcoming masterminds and events at nextlevelagents.com.
Resources & Links:
George Antone: fynanc.com
The Wealthy Code by George Antone
George's next book, Rigged, coming this fall
1 hr - The Goal Isn't to Be Right, It's to Get It Right: Leadership Lessons for Real Estate Agents from Ray Dalio's Principles
What if the thing holding your business back isn't your market, your leads, or your brokerage? What if it's your need to be right? One of the most successful investors in the world nearly lost everything because he was completely certain about a prediction that turned out to be completely wrong. He had to borrow money from his dad to keep his business alive. What he built from that failure changed everything.
In this episode, I break down the biggest lessons from Ray Dalio's book Principles and show you how they apply directly to your real estate business. This isn't about investing. It's about leadership, decision making, team building, and most importantly, building yourself. If you've ever lost a listing, made a bad hire, or stuck with a strategy way too long, this one's for you.
Key Takeaways:
- The goal isn't to be right, it's to get it right. There's a massive difference, and it's where average performers and extraordinary performers split.
- Pain plus reflection equals progress. Pain alone teaches you nothing. The lesson only shows up when you stop and ask what the experience is trying to teach you.
- Every mistake should create a principle. Over time, those principles compound into your own leadership playbook and decision-making framework.
- Try the 30-day mistake journal challenge: when something goes wrong, write down what happened, why it happened, and what principle prevents it from happening again.
Ready to get to your next level? If you're an agent who's serious about growth, coaching, and community, learn more about what we're building at nextlevelagents.com/exp. And head over to nextlevelagents.com and check out the events tab for our full virtual and in-person mastermind calendar.
Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla
17 min - Fix the Leaks Before You Chase More Leads
Before you spend another dollar on leads, ask yourself a harder question: where is your business leaking the opportunities you already have? Kevin Kauffman is back solo, and he's making the case that most agents don't have a lead problem at all. They have a leak problem. Money, referrals, appointments, and profit are quietly slipping through the cracks while everyone shouts for more.
Kevin walks through the biggest leaks he sees in real estate businesses, from untouched databases to appointments that never get asked for, and lays out a simple five-step framework to find your biggest leak and plug it. The core idea stings a little: your business is perfectly designed for the results you're currently getting. But that also means the system that created the result can create a different one.
Key takeaways:
- The money is buried in the follow-up, not the lead source. Before you call leads bad, look at speed to lead, attempts made, and how many are sitting untouched.
- Your database is likely your most underutilized asset. Every transaction should create a future opportunity, and every client should know how to support your business.
- Conversations don't pay the bills. Appointments, signed clients, and closings do, so diagnose exactly where the breakdown happens instead of guessing.
- Don't fix everything at once. Name the biggest leak, measure it, assign an owner, inspect it, and improve it. Then move to the next one.
If this hit home, don't just nod along. Pick your one biggest leak and go plug it this week. And if you're ready to build your business alongside people doing this at the highest level, learn more about partnering with us at nextlevelagents.com/exp. Check out the events tab at nextlevelagents.com for our next virtual and in-person masterminds.
Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla
17 min - Brute Force, Wealth, and Why Your Habits Are Lying to You
Most agents aren't losing because they lack strategy. They're losing because they're confusing discipline with habit, busy work with progress, and someone else's entrepreneurial ceiling with their own potential. In Part 2 of this conversation, Kevin Kauffman and Chris Bowers pick up right where they left off — and it gets real fast.
This episode digs into what it actually takes to will your goals into existence, why the person you're comparing yourself to might just have a higher natural starting point than you, and what "money loves speed, wealth loves time, poverty loves indecision" means for how you're running your business and your finances right now.
Key takeaways:
- Charisma and hard work are both powerful alone — but the agents who combine them are in a different category entirely
- What looks like discipline from the outside is almost always habit on the inside — and you only need discipline long enough to build one
- Volume negates luck: do enough of the right thing that success becomes the only reasonable outcome
- The goal isn't optional — you can't build a process without knowing what direction you're headed
- Money loves speed. Wealth loves time. Poverty loves indecision. Pick which one you're living right now.
Ready to be around people who operate at this level? Find out what the NLA community looks like at nextlevelagents.com/exp. And check the events tab at nextlevelagents.com for upcoming masterminds.
Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla
52 min - The Dream Was Never Supposed to Be Easy. Stop Pretending It Was.
Most people want the result without the receipt. They want the win without the actual story of what it cost — the years, the failed experiments, the money spent before there was money to spend. In this episode, Kevin Kauffman and Chris Bowers get real about the gap between the story people tell about their success and what actually happened. If you've ever felt like you're doing all the right things and still not moving, this one's for you.
This is Part 1 of 2. Kevin and Chris dig into the long game — what it really takes to build something that lasts, why "success is sequential not simultaneous," and how easy it is to mistake busy work for real progress. They also get into tracking your numbers, protecting your time, and why the most dangerous thing a successful person can do is forget what actually got them there.
Key takeaways:
- Accomplishing your dreams was never going to be fast, easy, or risk-free — and the sooner you accept that, the faster you move
- Success is sequential, not simultaneous — you cannot skip steps, and trying to will cost you more time than just doing them in order
- Going to the gym every day and getting fatter is real — and it's happening in your business right now if you're not tracking what actually matters
- The narrative successful people tell about how they got there often doesn't match what really happened — don't build your strategy on a revised story
- Time is the real currency — protecting it, not just earning more money, is the metric that matters most for the long game
Ready to stop guessing and start building? The NLA community is where agents who are serious about the next level come to do the work. Find out what that looks like at nextlevelagents.com/exp. And check the events tab at nextlevelagents.com for upcoming virtual and in-person masterminds.
Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla
39 min - The ABC Goal Grading System: How to Grade Your Day and Fix How You Feel
What if you graded your day the same way school graded you? Chris Bowers did it for three weeks straight. Every day got a score: A, B, C, or D across health, production, and recruiting. Then he sat by the pool, asked himself how he actually felt in each area, and went back to check the spreadsheet. The feelings matched the grades. Every single time.
The ABC system takes about ten minutes to set up. You write rules for what an A, B, and C look like in each area of your life, you grade yourself daily, and you let an accountability partner see the scoreboard. It sounds simple because it is. The hard part is being honest about the D's.
Key takeaways:
- How the ABC system works: A is a stretch, B is what you can do consistently and feel good about, C is the bare minimum that keeps the habit alive
- Your mood matches your grade average. If a category feels like a C this month, the fix is getting A's tomorrow
- The jump from C to B is easy once you start moving. Nobody jumps from C to A in a single day
- Track the D's honestly. The scoreboard only works if you stop hiding from it
- Your rules are yours. Chris and Nolan set completely different standards for an A, and that's the point. Stop playing by anybody else's standards
If this hit home, do the ten minutes. Write your rules, grade today, and hand the spreadsheet to someone who will call you out. And if you're ready to surround yourself with agents who keep score like this every day, learn more about what we're building at nextlevelagents.com/exp. You can also catch us in person. Head to nextlevelagents.com and hit the events tab for our next virtual and in-person masterminds.
23 min - The Compound Leverage Effect: How Protecting Your Time Makes You Richer
Motivation is overrated. That's the uncomfortable truth at the center of this conversation. Chris Bowers, Nolan Rucker, and I go deep on why some agents burn out chasing goals while others build businesses that get lighter and more profitable every single year.
We get into the seasons of fatigue every agent hits, why people pleasers struggle the most with leverage, and the moment each of us realized we'd already blown past what we once thought was possible. Chris breaks down what he calls the compound leverage effect, and we all get honest about the daily mechanisms we use when the motivation just isn't there.
Key takeaways:
Burnout usually means you're doing work you never had to do in the first place. Get leveraged or sell fewer homes, but pick one.
Motivation is unreliable. Scoreboards, systems, and a written plan carry you on the days it doesn't show up.
Decide the relationship you want to have with your business, then only pull the levers that support it.
Debt is a choice more often than agents admit. Lower your burn rate and you buy back your freedom.
You can admire someone else's model and still choose never to implement it. Be a student, not a follower.
If this one hit home, it's time to get around people who build businesses on purpose. Head to nextlevelagents.com/exp to learn what's next, and check out the events tab at nextlevelagents.com for our upcoming virtual and in-person masterminds.
41 min - AI Won't Kill Your Real Estate Business, But Ignoring Your Leads Will
AI is the loudest conversation in real estate right now, and most agents are handling it wrong. Some are panicking. Some are pretending it doesn't exist. And a whole lot are burning their best money-making hours building automations instead of talking to buyers and sellers. On this episode, Chris Bowers, Nolan Rucker, and I get honest about where AI actually fits in your business today.
We've seen this movie before. A decade ago, everyone swore Zillow would put agents out of business. Before that, the old guard mocked us for embracing social media. Both times, the agents who kept selling while they learned the new tool lapped everyone else. That's the play here too.
In this episode:
Why AI belongs in your "second shift" and your prime hours still belong to lead generation
The Zillow panic, the social media wave, and what both taught us about betting on new technology
Real agents closing real deals with AI right now, including one agent's 11 closings in 10 months from AI-driven leads
The danger of outsourcing your thinking, and why your clients are already negotiating with you through a chatbot
How to decide between hiring a VA and building with AI, starting with writing down the actual problems in your business
Here's what I want you to do. Write down the three problems in your business that AI might solve, then guard your money-making hours while you figure them out. Uncertainty should make you move faster, not freeze up. If you're ready to surround yourself with agents who think this way, learn more about our community at nextlevelagents.com/exp and grab a seat at an upcoming mastermind on the events tab.
38 min - The 2% Habits Most Real Estate Agents Quit On (And How to Stay In)
Every agent wants the strategy that changes everything. The truth is the agents winning right now are doing a handful of unglamorous things every single day while everyone else chases the next shiny tactic. This episode breaks down exactly what those things are and why they work.
This is a raw share from the weekly Zoom Fred and I host for our eXp group. It is about conversations, follow-up, accountability, and showing up online whether you feel like it or not. If you have been spinning your wheels paying attention to the wrong things, this one resets your focus.
Here is what to lock in:
- Make 10 to 15 meaningful two-minute conversations every day and log every one in your CRM. If you cannot pull up the note, it did not happen.
- Keep your CRM clean. Every lead gets an e-alert, a task, and a note, and your task list hits zero before you leave the office.
- Get a yoke partner. One ox pulls 4,000 pounds. Two yoked together pull 16,000. Accountability is how you pull four times the weight.
- Know the difference between a goal and a commitment. A goal gets changed when it gets hard. A commitment does not move.
- Post three times a day: one personal, one business value, one win. People are looking you up the second they hang up the phone, and now AI is scanning for you too.
Ready to find the people who will actually hold your feet to the fire and pull alongside you? That is what we are building inside Next Level Agents at eXp. Come see what your next level looks like at https://nextlevelagents.com/exp/, and check the events tab at https://nextlevelagents.com for our next virtual and in-person masterminds.
27 min - Why Most Agents Stay Broke (And the Mindset Shift That Fixes It)
Here's the hard truth most agents don't want to hear: you didn't earn freedom the day you got your license. You earned a job. And until you treat it like one, you'll keep riding the same feast-or-famine rollercoaster that keeps good agents broke for years.
This episode is about flipping that mindset for good. Stop calling yourself an entrepreneur who can show up whenever and leave whenever. Start showing up like the best employee you'd ever hire, the kind who'd get paid like a CEO. When you build real standards around your time, your tasks, and your lead generation, the income follows. Not because it's magic, but because it's intentional.
Here's what gets broken down:
- Why the "I'm an entrepreneur, I do what I want" belief is exactly what keeps agents stuck and broke
- The "work it like a job, get paid like a CEO" framework: a real start time, a real end time, and a real job description
- Why 90% of your job is client acquisition and only 10% is servicing clients, and what to offload first
- The five lead gen levers that actually add up to 20 connects a day (sphere, social media, cold lead gen, open houses, agent referrals) without buying a single dialer lead
- How to put yourself on a 30-day PIP and hold standards across your business, your health, and your relationships
If you're tired of doing two deals, getting flush, then going broke 60 days later, this is the reset. Pick one lever, put a real start and end time on your calendar, and run it like someone's paying you $100,000 to do it. Because someone is: you.
Want a room full of agents and leaders building businesses this way? Come see what we're doing at Next Level Agents inside eXp Realty: https://nextlevelagents.com/exp/
Please leave us a review at https://ratethispodcast.com/nla
22 min
About Next Level Agents: The Kevin & Fred Show - Interviews with the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry
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Interviews from the best and brightest minds in the real estate industry. We cover topics like Investing, listings, buyers, brokerage, technology, entrepreneurship and so much more. Brought to you by…
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